Once the product concept has been developed it needs to be turned into a detailed design for the product or service so that it can move one step closer to becoming a reality. Design determines customer acceptance levels in particular, but also affects overall deliverability of products and services.
A key issue here is that of good design. We need to identify what constitutes a good design to begin to structure the operational requirements for NPD.
For operations managers, designing the service product with the customer in mind is of fundamental importance. In service design, well-designed products meet two often conflicting needs; the first is customer needs, the second is the need practically (and economically) to be able to deliver the service. The First Direct system would not work unless operators could quickly identify and verify customers using computer and communications technology, otherwise the costs would be prohibitive.
Designers face a similar challenge in designing tangible products.
The Sydney Opera House, one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, was designed by Jørn Utzon. Utzon’s design for the exterior was based on two overturned boat hulls – his father was a yacht designer – and required innovative engineering solutions. Amongst other problems, his design suffered from escalating costs as it was being built, and in order to trim the costs Utzon’s design for the interior of the opera house was discarded in favour of a less expensive design, which has been compared with a 1960s bingo hall.
Product design therefore has an additional element: the elegance of the design solution. For some customers such elegance forms part of their perception of quality. Elegance may influence the decision to purchase. For example, the elegance of Apple Computer’s PCs, with innovative, exciting colours, helped to transform the company at the end of the 1990s. This element adds the human or creative element to the design process, but it also creates a further set of potential conflicts to be resolved. Caroll (1993, p. 147) describes what happened at Compaq:
[Compaq] turned everybody loose on the problem at once. The process was as messy as a dog fight, but it cut months out of the time it took to get a product on the market.
Clearly the interpretation of the end result for a customer is a highly personal issue and one that, like quality, it is challenging to analyse.
Figure 3.5 summarizes the discussion.
The first element to be incorporated into the design is that of customer needs and preferences. This should consider how products perform in use, and the different ways that people can use them. For Quicken, writers of the leading personal financial management software, a key element in the popularity of the software is its robustness. Customers do not always read the instructions before using the product, and yet the product must still work or face incurring dissatisfaction. Many people feel that designers do not pay sufficient
Customer needs
and preferences Resource
constraints Designers’
creativity
Marketability of
‘the concept’
Good design
Technical
constraints Time
constraints
attention to their needs – for example, who in the world designed television remote controls with so many buttons?
Resource constraints require that a design is deliverable, often with only minor changes to the existing operational resources of the organization. For example, whilst basic banking services have not changed much over time, the technologies available to deliver these services have changed significantly. NPD involves matching the needs of the product to the capabilities of the technology. Banks are totally reliant on their IT systems for their service provision, and so will be constrained by what can be delivered by the IT providers. In addition, there will only be limited resources available to the firm.
The need for creative design to maximize the differentiation of the product or service offering is a consideration in the marketability of the concept. Marketers have learned to promote elements that go beyond the mere functionality of products. An old marketing adage is ‘Sell the sizzle, not the steak’. Cars, for example, have associated images that confer on their owners safety, sportiness, sophistication, individuality or fun. This will need to be developed alongside the product, and will be a major determinant of the success or otherwise of the product.
Technical constraints refer to a specific set of issues concerning tangible products in particular. Product designers are prone to over-promising the possibilities of their technology, and then can’t deliver the promises within the required timescales. The designer therefore needs to incorporate technology that is sufficiently leading edge to provide a credible competitive advantage, yet which contains suffi-ciently well-proven technology to make the development achievable within the time constraints.
Figure 3.5 How design relates to customers.
This leads to the last element – time. If more development time were available, many more innovations would be possible. Since firms need to earn profits, developers have to provide the best possible solution within a limited amount of time. This is particularly challenging where several technologies must be integrated for the product to function.
For instance, a washing machine has mechanical components (e.g. the drum assembly), electrical components (e.g. the motor that spins the drum) and electronic components (e.g. the control circuitry that runs the machine). All of these must work together for the product to operate successfully.